Editorial standards

Version 1.0 · Effective Nov 9, 2026

Weedpedia is a sourced cannabis encyclopedia, drafted with AI assistance and checked by an automated fact-check pass. This document defines how articles are drafted, fact-checked, reviewed, and corrected; what we promise readers; and what we do not.

1. Mission

Three commitments, in priority order:

Accuracy over speed. A topic page that doesn't exist yet is better than a page that misinforms a reader.
Transparency over authority. The full generation history of every article — drafting model, fact-check report, re-review schedule — is visible from the article. You do not have to trust us; you can verify.
Calibration over confidence. We label what we know strongly, weakly, anecdotally, contestedly, or not at all. We do not pretend to certainty we don't have.

2. Source tiers

Every citation is classified into one of these tiers, displayed on the article:

Peer-reviewed: scientific journal articles.
Government: agencies, regulatory bodies, intergovernmental orgs.
Reported: established journalism with editorial standards.
Book: established publishers, especially in horticulture, pharmacology, history.
Practitioner: documented breeder/grower records with verifiable provenance.

3. Evidence labels

Every factual claim carries an evidence label:

Strong: multiple high-quality sources, replicated findings, systematic reviews or multiple RCTs for medical claims.
Weak / limited: some peer-reviewed support exists but is limited, mixed, or unreplicated.
Anecdote: common claim in the field, no controlled research support.
Disputed: credible sources actively disagree. We present the disagreement and do not arbitrate.
No data: the question has not been meaningfully studied.

4. AI usage policy

What AI does

Drafting assistance: Anthropic Claude produces the first draft, with source claims attached to citations.
Fact-check automation: OpenAI GPT independently audits the draft, flagging unsupported claims, likely-hallucinated sources, and overstated evidence.
Scheduled re-audits: published articles are rechecked on a rolling schedule, oldest first, a few at a time.

What AI does not do

Provide personal advice. We are an encyclopedia, not a chatbot.
Auto-publish medical articles. Those are held for operator approval.
Override the operator. The operator can retire, regenerate, or delete any article at any time.

5. Human oversight

One human operator runs this site. Their role is quality control, not authorship. They approve held medical and seedbank changes, act on reader error reports, and decide which topics are covered. Not every article has been read by a person.

6. Sponsored content

Weedpedia does not currently accept sponsored content of any kind. If this changes in the future, sponsored content will be clearly labeled and walled off from encyclopedia articles. Encyclopedia articles will never be sponsored under any circumstances.

7. Corrections

Readers can flag errors through the report button on any article. Confirmed errors trigger regeneration; the old version remains in the generation history. We do not silently delete content.